[stonogo]

No, being venture backed means a venture capitalist invested in your company. All that other stuff is just like, your opinion, man. It's extremely popular in Silicon Valley but that doesn't mean it's a fact, or even that it's particularly common in the rest of the world. In fact, I'd wager most venture-backed companies only raise one round, and this endless-money fever dream is the rarity.

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

Okay so your entire comment thread is really arguing about the semantics of what the phrase “venture-backed” means. I really don’t see what’s the gain by pursuing this line of discussion other than to be argumentative. Everyone clearly knows what everyone else means.

[stonogo]

No, my entire comment thread is about this article pretending to have invented a third option, when in fact it's still just the two. It's a bullshit clickbait headline, where a more honest one would have been "Endless fundraising isn't necessary" or something. Everyone clearly doesn't know what everyone else means, or else the headline wouldn't be misleading and someone else wouldn't have tried to convince me that 'venture-backed' means your business should be a ponzi scheme.

[em-bee]

I'd wager most venture-backed companies only raise one round, and this endless-money fever dream is the rarity

do you have some statistics to that? i'd expect that most startups that raise only once do so because they failed before they could raise again.

how many startups raise once and then become a successful profitable business without ever raising again? that's what "this third" way is about.